Roasting : Yemen Mokkha Sharasi (Round Two)

So I am taking the Yemen well into Full City today. I am also experimenting (as much as I can with my popcorn roaster) with a roast curve. I am allowing the air to escape so I can control the roast after the first crack. This hopefully will have a similar affect to an actual roasters decrease in BTU's in the roast cylinder. The Yemen should work well as an experiment due to its heartier cell structure and size differential. Also, I don't feel weird wasting it in part because it was an experimental purchase and I have realized (duh moment) that the really tart nutty flavor was a result of over fermentation. Can't always be perfect. Oh well.

I will let you all know what this darker roast turns out to be like. Thanks for sticking with me while I experiment and grope my way through the seemingly easy yet tumultuously complicated world of coffee roasting

On another point, I have received requests for photos of the various products and productions that I am under going. I have taken these suggestions under advisement and come to the conclusion that, since I am a student photographer, I should be including some sort of visual aid for your drooling pleasure. Stay tuned for more updates.

Later

In the Realms of Beer and Roasting

So I have messing around with this beer diary that my bosses bought me and it's a pretty handy little tool. The 33 Beers Journal has a easy to understand layout and fits easily in your back pocket. That being said, I have been taking notes in it and intend to flood the world with my assessment of 33 beers in one fell swoop.

As for roasting I am swinging back to the Burundi today. I have had good luck with this coffee not very far past the first crack (about two minutes or so). The smoke changes from a violet sweetness to a more nutty scent and I wait for that to develop before I end the roast. Tastes amazingly lemony and full of body. If you haven't had a Burundi before, you should definitely find one and check it out.

I would estimate that if this coffee was done in a full drum roaster that the lemon would calm down and reveal a more refined complex of berries and melon. I personally cup my roast at around 87 or so, but would hope for something a little richer and fully developed in the cup if it was professionally handled.

Roasting : Yemen Mokkha Sharasi

So I have been dabbling in the world of roasting since the beginning of summer, and I must say that I am doing a good job of it. I had been roasting mostly African coffees, i.e. Burundi and Ethiopian, but I had wanted to try my hand at a Yemen. Thanks to Sweet Maria's I was able to get some and started roasting it today. It had turned out to be somewhat of a headache though.

The beans are remarkably inconsistent and I have had to go back and pick out the blonde beans. The roast I was going for was a City-City+ and I think I got it, but there is no way to know if it is the right roast until I brew some in a few days. Here's to hoping that my first peregrination into Yemeny coffee is not a complete failure.

Later

Brouwerij 3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze

I am not the biggest fan of sours (sour things in general are not my bag) but when my friend Alex brings over a bottle of this stuff, you just don't refuse that sort of thing. So we chilled it to the proper temp (around 45F) and preceded to pour away.

The pour was clean. I had my share in a glass chalice while Alex poured his into a bulbed wine glass (good head and decent nose retention as well). The yeasts poured out in the end giving it a gorgeous burnt orange hue. The opacity was such that in my chalice it held a wide spectrum from clear gold to solid orange.

The first scents wafted up and I could tell this was going to unfold deliciously. I found apricots and tart red plums right away, with a bite like that of fresh ground nutmeg. As it warmed I started loosing that plum and gaining a more "early" golden delicious apple.

The tart aspect, while at first was a little affronting, grew on me and enhanced my appreciation for this finely crafted geuze.

Overall I would have to say that this is definitely one lambic ale that everyone needs to try at least once in their lifetime.

Produced: May 05, 2008

Highland Hill Farms - Smoked Wild Boar Bacon

A while back I realized, thanks to the Berkeley Farmers Market, that one of the regulars at my cafe was moonlighting as a rancher. Okay, not so much moonlighting as doing as a profession. Knowing that generally only the best edibles are usually sold at the BFM, my wife and I got curious and decided to give them a try. This was several months back and I must say, it is a treat to finally meet a rancher who cares this much about the quality of the meats he produces. We splurge once a month and buy ourselves a small portion of meat that lasts us through the month, all the while reveling in the shear purity of the product Ted (the regular) produces.

Now, I had talked to Ted a few days ago and he told me that he was going to have bacon at the Saturday BFM, so naturally my wife and I got excited. We love the bacon that Ted makes, so juicy and not overly seasoned. When we got to the market, we were informed by the girl working the stand that some kind of mix up happened and the bacon wasn't ready. We were a little heartbroken. We had been looking forward to that bacon and felt a little let down. I decided to go and tell Ted, who was sitting in the back of the tent, that we would see him at the next farmers market and looked forward to getting our bacon then. After telling Ted exactly that, he informs me that there was a mix up with his butcher, but he had brought me a surprise as consolation for the 'hurt feelings' he thought I would have over not getting bacon.

He went over to one of his coolers and pulls out a small package and hands it to me. "I brought this for you. It's from my own stash." he tells me. I am elated. Not only am I getting some of the best bacon I have ever known, but it is from the personal stash of the rancher himself! WOOT! We buy the bacon and bring it home. Unfortunately for us, my wife and I both had to work that day, so we zipped right off to work without getting a chance to try the deliciousness that had come home with us.

The next day Ted comes into the cafe and asks me how the bacon was. I tell him that we hadn't had a chance to try it yet, but look forward to it. Here is where the bomb shell hits. [It must be noted at this point in the tale that I had been telling my wife earlier in the day that I wished we could try some of the wild boar that Ted has once in a rare while. I had always wanted to try it, and thought this was probably one of the best chances I was going to get.] "You're gonna love it. That bacon was from the last wild boar I had. It is phenomenal!" !!!OMG!!! was honestly the first things that ran through my mind. I slapped on the stupidest happiest grin I could manage without breaking my face and thanked him heartily. This man had brought to me an opportunity that I had been craving.

Now we come to the point in this story where I prepared every last piece of that juicy delicious bacon, gobbled it all up and slathered the bacon grease all over my naked body...right? No.

We did in fact make a few pieces this evening. It was cut a quarter inch thick. The meat was a deep rich red, and smelled of honey and clove when it was baking (I bake my bacon, crisps up nicely and you can control the cooking process so much more easily). The flavor was dark and, quite frankly, meaty. Not the shitty grocery stop pork chop cardboard kind of meaty. More like the, "Holy Shit! I now realize why my ancient ancestors hunted meat in the first place!" kind of meaty. The best part however was the fat. Generally the fat on bacon can be tough and chewy but still quite edible. The fat on the wild boar bacon was however creamy and pliant, almost the consistency of taffy. At one point, after having just swallowed a tasty morsel of fatty bacon, I turned to my wife and remarked "This is the kind of food that makes me feel more connected to my roots, to who I really am and where I came from." Personally I think that sums up the whole experience rather nicely.

Later